4 Answers
4

Because the auto-login process happens asynchronously. In other words, you may already be reading stuff, have already scrolled down, started typing, or whatnot, when the login process is completed. Automatically refreshing would be annoying in this case.

In one case, though, this will happen automatically (proving that it's not a technical problem): When you're on the login page, we take it as granted that you want to go back to whereever you clicked "log in" (e.g. on the chat site), so it's safe to automatically redirect you back.

Am I right to assume you considered loading the top bar (Inbox, user name, reputation, links) instead of showing that banner? (Apart from the development effort, I can also imagine that such would cause more confusion as the remaining contents of the page would not reflect favorite and ignored tags then.)
–
ArjanSep 1 '12 at 12:15

1

@Arjan Yeah, there's tons and tons page content that changes when you log in. Requiring a single F5 or click (only happening once for a session anyway) to make sure that the complete page fits the login that's displayed in the top bar is just the best way to go. Changing the whole page content unobtrusively is just close to impossible (think: deleted answers suddenly appearing, the links under the post changing, comment controls changing, vote arrows changing, etc.).
–
balpha♦Sep 1 '12 at 12:38

(Ah, I didn't even think about pages other than the home page!)
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ArjanSep 1 '12 at 12:40

4

why not do the refresh automatically if the user hasn't scrolled yet?
–
Brian MortensonMar 5 '13 at 19:15

2

This is pretty annoying to see across 5 or 6 stack exchange websites one after the other - I'd prefer to see uncustomised content or asynchronously load the user information top bar rather than this banner.
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Simon DAug 29 '14 at 3:57

I think the 'click here' isn't needed. There is no need at all to show a notification bar. If SE is able to determine that the user is registered, they could 'just' put the username at the right spot at the top of the page.

The 'only' reason to refresh the page is the added functionality at the top of the page (StackExchange area with notifications, user area with hover) that nobody would miss really.

Edit
Before clicking 'click here'.

After clicking...

The only difference I see is the 'Welcome' box on the right that was replaced by the 'Favorite Tag' and 'Ignored Tag' textbox.

Being logged in means a lot more than just a name shown at the top of the page. There are privileges that come with being logged in and having reputation, and that affects a significant portion of the page.
–
Rebecca ChernoffJul 17 '11 at 22:48

Arriving at Q&A? I only see a bunch of questions.
–
GUI JunkieJul 17 '11 at 23:00

7

Maybe the user has favorite/ignored tags that affect the display of those questions. Maybe the user has notifications they are supposed to get. Maybe the user went directly to a question page and thus a significant portion of the page is affected. Maybe the user went directly to their profile and needs their authenticated view of their profile. Etc...
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Rebecca ChernoffJul 19 '11 at 0:03

1

Now that many details are loaded dynamically (see Real time updates to questions, answers, and inbox), it indeed seems that the user details could be added this way too. But I'm not sure if it's worth the effort, given the exceptions that @Rebecca mentioned, and also her note about about how some users might expect some questions to be removed from their home page. So, a message about the refresh doesn't look too bad to me either.
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ArjanMay 24 '12 at 18:57

the user settings affect a large part of the page; you're hand-waving that away as trivial.
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Jeff Atwood♦Dec 24 '10 at 20:55

@Jeff, Rebecca is saying the same thing below. Could you expand on that or link to a blog post of yours explaining it?
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GUI JunkieJul 18 '11 at 6:47

2

@Jeff, I really don't see it (see my edit below, if you please)
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GUI JunkieJul 18 '11 at 23:20

1

@JeffAtwood Can't we have a few workarounds to ease the pain? Such as: On question pages when the user tries to do something that requires logging in, automatically refresh and perform the action they were trying to do.
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Sverre RabbelierNov 2 '11 at 23:30